


Wild Child

by rachel4revenge (orphan_account)



Series: The One Where Sherlock is a Fawn [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Fawnlock, Interspecies, M/M, Temper Tantrums, bird!Anthea, moosecroft - Freeform, more like elkcroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:39:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rachel4revenge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John loses his temper, and finds a way to regain Sherlock's trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bennyslegs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bennyslegs/gifts).



When John came home from his grocery run into town, the door was wide open and mud had been tracked in on the mat. He blew an irritated sigh and closed the door behind him, sidestepping the mud to lay the bags on the kitchen table. “Sherlock! What’ve I told you about wiping your feet?”

There was no immediate response, and John poked his head into the living room to find it empty. The couch pillows had been relocated to different points around the room (complete with specks and smears of mud decorating their patchwork surfaces), and the bookshelf was in total disarray, but there was no Sherlock. To the bedroom, then. Growling under his breath about bloody inconsiderate faerie who didn’t bother to clean themselves up before traipsing all over his nice clean cottage, he followed the muddy trail down the hall to the bedroom.

Empty. But the bathroom door was ajar, a pale stream of yellow light filtering through, accompanied by the sound of splashing and a faint hint of John’s mint body wash. So. Not entirely inconsiderate, though John could have done without the rearranging of the living room. He went to push the door open, and froze.

The loo was a disaster area. The medicine cabinet was open and all the bottles tumbled into the sink – closed, thankfully, their fiddly caps too much for even Sherlock’s clever fingers – and the cupboards were open, towels and loo rolls and cleaning supplies jostled this way and that without rhyme or reason. The floor was mercifully bare of detritus, but it was also covered with great puddles of water, darkening the seafoam tiles (straight out of the seventies) to jade green. And in the tub, billowing clouds of bubbles nearly obscured the culprit, save for a smear of brown here and there and two rather distinctive antlers branching over the whole mess like some kind of woodland benefactor of chaos.

John leaned against the doorframe, sighed. “Sherlock.” It was his no-nonsense voice, drawn straight up from the pit of his belly; the mountain of bath suds quaked faintly in reply.

“’Speriment, John,” came a soft voice from the bath. Hands appeared, dark brown fading to flesh tone at the elbows, all swabbed and striped with white from the overexcited use of John’s shower gel. They cleared away some of the mess, revealing a rather woeful face.

“Don’t give me that look.” John gestured to the mess. “What’s all this? And don’t say ‘experiment,’ that’s your explanation for everything these days.”

Sherlock pouted, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by his fluffy white halo. “Needed a bath. You said dirty fawns need bath.”

“ _This_  is not a bath, Sherlock!” He clenched his jaw together in an effort not to shout, and he felt his leg twinge warningly beneath him. “This is a – a scene out of a horror film, or something. God-” A headache was building between his temples, throbbing in the tender curve of his skull, and abruptly he wanted to hit something. “Just get out, Sherlock. Get out of my house.”

Sherlock’s silver eyes blinked uncertainly. “John say, I come any time.”

“Yes – yes I did say that, and I am  _deeply_  regretting it,” he muttered, pressing his hands to his forehead.

Slowly, as if he were waiting for John to retract his words, Sherlock stood and swung one leg over the side. A wave of water followed him, slopping onto the floor and sending a small surge toward the door and over John’s sock feet.

“ _Fuck!_ ” John shouted, because it was better than breaking his fist on the wall. Sherlock jumped in alarm, slipped on the floor, and went down hard in a pile of wayward limbs. He was skittering upright again almost immediately, feet turned to cloven hooves that skipped and scrabbled for purchase on the tile. He was very large, suddenly, ungainly and massive in the little room, with antlers swinging and eyes rolling nervously as he scrambled past John in a wet, sudsy rush, leaving damp spots on John’s shirt.

John’s shoulder’s slumped. “Fuck,” he said again, much more quietly. “Sherlock!” He turned, but Sherlock was much faster. Already the front door was swinging in the breeze and, when he reached it, the yard was empty, a few wayward bubbles floating innocently in the air. Still, he stepped out onto the back stoop, calling the fawn’s name until he was hoarse and his leg was beginning to cramp. With a heavy heart, he turned and walked back into the house, leaving the door propped wide.

Because he could think of nothing else to do, he drained the tub and cleaned it of hair (quite a bit of it), mopped up the floor, and put away the bottles and medicines. Then he made a cup of tea and sat on the stoop with his bad leg stretched out in front of him, waiting fruitlessly for Sherlock to find his way back. He felt a right berk. More than that, he felt vaguely abusive. No one deserved that sort of lashing-out from him, let alone Sherlock – his dear friend, his pupil, his… lover. It still felt strange to call him that, but it was better than “mate,” and it was certainly, irrevocably true.

The tea was stone-cold dregs when he finally levered himself up into the dying twilight and limped toward the forest edge. Sherlock clearly wasn’t coming back on his own, and John refused to spend the night apart when they were in such bad straits.

Unfortunately, Sherlock was nowhere to be found. Night had well and truly fallen, every favorite spot thoroughly combed, before John lowered himself to a fallen log and admitted he was both lost and as far from Sherlock as he’d been when he started – possibly farther. He pulled his flannel button-down higher around his neck and dropped his forehead to his knees, contemplating the odds of getting any sleep out here in the pitch-black of a northern Scottish forest at night.

Somewhere off to his right, a twig cracked purposefully. John held quite still, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck lift. From around the fuzzy edge of his arm, he could see a tall, slender shape stepping out of the trees. For a moment his heart leapt, thinking it was Sherlock – but then he saw the antlers, far wider and outspread than his friend’s, and he bit off the end of a sigh.

“Mycroft.”

John never quite knew what to make of him. He was Sherlock’s brother, he knew that much; whether or not he was a fawn was not so certain. He was tall and slim like Sherlock, but his deer-legs were sturdier and the hooves not so much dainty as bullish. His antlers were different too, large branching things that looked more like an elk’s than a deer’s. All the forest creatures – fae and otherwise – answered to him, and John had taken to thinking of him as the Woodland King.

Mycroft was also different in that he spoke perfect English, when he chose to (he often didn’t choose). He’d picked out his own English name, too, from an old encyclopedia of British lords and dignitaries 1400 A.D.-1800 A.D.; John had just nodded and kept quiet.

“Where’s Sherlock?” he asked now, desperate beyond social niceties. Hopefully Mycroft was in an English-speaking sort of mood.

The enormous fawn – if that was what he was – inclined his antlered head curiously. “You are looking for him?” As if he didn’t already know the entire situation, down to the thoughts chasing themselves around John’s frantic head.

“You know I am,” John sighed. “Please. I made a mistake, a bad one, and I need to fix it. I need to apologize.”

Mycroft watched him intently, betraying no emotion on his pinched face. “It baffles me, John, that my brother trusts  _you_ , a human. Loves you, even, if he is even capable of such emotion.”

John tried not to glower. “I believe he is.”

“And yet you betrayed that trust. What is it going to take, do you think, to get him to feel safe with you again? To trust you again so implicitly?”

“He’ll forgive me,” John said staunchly.

“Oh, I have no doubt he will. But trust is an entirely different… animal.” He grinned, humorless, and the baring of his teeth raised John’s hackles.

“I’ll do what it takes.” John stood, pretending he had a little bit of even ground. “He’s my mate.”

Mycroft’s eyelids dipped slightly, and John realized he hadn’t known. Oops. “See to it that you do,” Mycroft said stiffly. “Our kind mates and loves for life.” One hand lifted, twitched; a small brown bird swooped down and landed on the spreading cusp of one antler prong. “Anthea will show you.” The bird twittered briefly before landing on John’s shoulder without asking. It was hard to tell, but he thought she was wearing a disdainful expression.

Abruptly, John sneezed, dislodging the bird in a flurry of feathers. When his vision cleared, the elk-man was gone, melted into the nighttime shadows as smoothly as if he’d never been there. John shivered, and turned to Anthea. “Where to?”

The bird peeped, superior, and flitted to a nearby branch; in spite of its slenderness, it hardly bowed under her weight. Jon rubbed his eyes tiredly and followed.

In the end, Sherlock was somewhere John had never been before, huddled under layers of dead leaves in a sheltered hollow left by a fallen tree. The root system, ripped forcibly from the earth by some long-ago windstorm, towered above John’s head, a black, spidery shape in the dark. John ventured into the lee of its reach, settling down on his haunches. “Sherlock?”

The leaves rustled and hissed; he thought he could see the gleaming shapes of two antlers rising from their midst.

“Sherlock, it’s me. It’s John. I… I was horrible to you earlier. I’m sorry.” He fiddled nervously with his cuffs. What the fawn even listening? “Please would you come home?”

A moment of utter quiet. Then Sherlock sat up slowly, his hair a wild, half-wet tangle of dirt and leaves. “Get out of my house.”

John blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“John say, get out of my house.” Sherlock was entirely expressionless, but even in the dark, John could see the flicker of hurt in his eyes. He sighed and lowered himself to sit on the ground, a few feet away.

“I know what I said, Sherlock. But I didn’t mean it. I was tired and achy – but that’s no excuse. I should never have shouted at you.”

Sherlock thought about this. “John shouted very loud,” he said, so quiet he could barely be heard.

Guilt twisted John’s stomach. “I know. I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, Sherlock.”

They sat like that for long minutes, as night fell deeper and deeper around them, all velvet black and rustling. Finally, as John was beginning to shiver, Sherlock crawled out of his leafy nest and sat in John’s lap. “John is sorry. Yes?”

“Yes.” John smiled faintly, slipping his arms cautiously around the fawn’s slender waist. “Very sorry.”

Sherlock leaned close, put his cold, wet nose against John’s cold, dry one. “I forgive you.”

John tightened his hold, kissed a smudge of dirt off Sherlock’s cheek. “Come home, please?”

“Come home please. Yes.” The fawn scrambled upright, deer-legs slender and dainty among the rotting leaves. “Sherlock dirty.” He paused and shook his head, corrected himself: “ _I’m_  dirty.”

John grinned. “We’ll just have to give you a bath then, won’t we?”

* * *

It was nearly midnight when John bent to run the tap, the water thundering hollowly against the cool porcelain. Sherlock lingered in the doorway, every line of his body stiff with tension, and John made sure his movements were smooth and telegraphed plainly as he added a proper amount of shower gel to the water, testing it all the time for temperature. When it was a little more than halfway full – it was a monster of a thing, and even half-empty it was enough to cover the fawn to the middle of his ribs – he rolled up his sleeves, laid down a folded towel on the floor for his knees, and patted the side of the tub.

“Come here, love. I’m not letting you into bed looking like that.”

Sherlock hesitated a bit longer before tapping across the tile. John had to turn and sneeze delicately into his elbow, and when he turned back around, Sherlock was shifting muddy feet guiltily on the bathmat. John reached out, cupped the back of one lightly-furred calf. A slight smile poked out the corners of Sherlock’s generous mouth.

“You’re not mad?”

John swallowed. Sherlock’s English was still stilted, but now and then he came out with complete sentences that reminded him how intelligent and observant he was. John was shite at explaining grammar and tenses and all the winding vagaries of the English language, but Sherlock was still managing to progress by leaps and bounds.

“I’m not mad,” he said gently. He squeezed a bit, just to feel the heft of muscle under skin, and slipped his soiled hand away. “Go ahead and get in.”

The fawn obeyed, settling gingerly in the hot water. Sherlock looked at the roomy tub, and out at John. “Come in?”

John had been thinking about it, but he hadn’t wanted to make Sherlock uncomfortable. Now that he was invited, however, he stood up and slipped neatly out of his clothing. He rather felt like a bath after traipsing about the woodlands for hours, anyway. Sherlock generously made room for him, and he ended up sitting with his back against the opposite end (the tap, thankfully, was in the middle of the far side), legs framed by Sherlock’s longer limbs. He picked one leg up and grabbed the soap.

Sherlock wasn’t ticklish at all, but his toes still twitched energetically as John scrubbed between them and along the firm arch of his foot. Underneath the mud, Sherlock’s skin was a pleasant light brown color, with touches of gold – the color of John’s ritual morning cuppa. When the foot was spotless, veins and bones and tendons all visible beneath the near-translucent stretch of skin, John bent and kissed the top tenderly. The fawn made a short noise of appreciation in his throat, settled deeper into the water.

So it went, in perfect quiet: John lathering every inch of Sherlock’s tawny skin, now largely free of peach fuzz with the advent of summer, and the fawn lying back with his eyes closed and chest rumbling with periodic sounds of contentment. By the time John had reached his chest, the businesslike air had dissolved into something more soft and languid. He rubbed his spread palms up and down Sherlock’s torso, reveling in the slick, sudsy texture as he caressed his chest and teased dark, sensitive nipples with his fingers. Sherlock mewled and shifted, and suddenly John could feel the fawn’s arousal against the outside of his thigh. His hands slowed, slid up to cup his neck, and he bent forward to rest their foreheads together.

“I need to wash your hair,” he whispered, almost apologetic.

“Quickly,” Sherlock breathed. “First-” And he sat up to meet him in the middle of the tub, mouth seeking John’s. John kissed him back breathlessly, fingers soaping the smooth stretch of his neck, and he could taste the dwindling of his resolve on Sherlock’s tongue.

Gently, John pulled away, his hands steady on Sherlock’s chest when the fawn tried to follow. “Duck down,” he rasped. He fumbled for the shampoo, slopped a handful of the gel onto his palm. When Sherlock resurfaced, his hair streamed down his face, flecked here and there with bits of leaf. John rubbed his hands together quickly and sank them into those wild curls.

They discovered, as he massaged Sherlock’s sensitive scalp, that they were in the perfect position to come back together. The fawn tugged impatiently at his hips until John shuffled forward on his knees to sit in his lap, their groins coming flush together. Sherlock groaned, guttural, and nipped at John’s lower lip.

“Wait.” John’s hand slipped and slid in Sherlock’s soapy curls, so he latched onto the antlers instead. Sherlock froze. “Um.” Slowly his fingers relaxed, uncurled. “Not good?”

Sherlock inhaled deeply and held it. “Very good.”

“Oh.” Well then. John wriggled back again, sliding Sherlock with him, until he had much of the length of the tub to lean back in. He soaped the antlers, too, just because he could, and coaxed him down. “Rinse.”

The fawn laid back, submerging, and John leaned over him, rinsing out the shampoo as thoroughly as he could at the awkward angle. Then he hauled his sore legs up and out of the tub, leaving Sherlock to pop out of the water with an affronted expression. “Where go?”

“I’m too old for bathtub sex, Sherlock. Sorry.” He popped the drain, shuddered at the dirt already accumulating in the bottom, and reached for towels. “C’mon, let’s dry you off.” The fawn stepped delicately onto the bathmat and accepted the towel. He watched, wide-eyed, as John dried himself briskly before slinging the towel over an empty rack and turning to Sherlock. “Well?”

Sherlock held the fluffy cotton to his nose, inhaled. It smelled like laundry soap, cedar, and John. He rubbed it over his face like he’d seen John do, down his chest to his crotch. There he paused, distracted; he rubbed the towel over himself, little coos and sighs escaping at the sensation. John closed his eyes, groaned softly.

“Christ, Sherlock. You’re going to kill me.” He took him by the hips and kissed the center of his downy chest. “I’ll get the bed ready. Come in when you’re dry.” He waited for Sherlock to nod, to say “when dry” in understanding, before leaving the little room, now humid and warm and smelling strongly of mint. The bedroom was cool, a breath of fresh air by comparison. He kicked a few discarded articles of clothing toward the hamper, fixed the pillows and turned back the duvet a bit so any sweat or bodily fluids would get on the sheets instead. Then he sprawled out on top, feeling hot and restless as he waited.

The bathroom light flicked off (only once, thank God – Sherlock had spent an entire afternoon earlier in their acquaintance flipping all the lights in the cabin on and off repeatedly), and then Sherlock was sliding onto the mattress beside him, a slim wraith in the dark room. John opened his arms and the fawn fell into them easily.

“Hello there.” John rubbed his cheek against Sherlock’s, kissed the hinge of his jaw. “Ready for sleep?”

Sherlock growled and drew back. He read the amusement in John’s face and snorted. “Are you?”

“Mmm… I’m ready for something else,” he murmured. His hands smoothed down the planes of Sherlock’s back, making the fawn shift above him. “What do you want to do?”

In the weeks since Beltane, Sherlock had been eager to make love whenever possible. John, whose love life had been nonexistent for much of his tour of duty and all of his time back home, had been perfectly happy to be the instructor in this part of their relationship as well. They’d done quite a few things – frottage, of course, as well as fellatio, mutual fellatio, handjobs, mutual wanking (and oh, lord, teaching Sherlock about masturbation had been one of the best ideas of his entire life). Penetration had not yet been broached, partly due to a lack of supplies and partly due to John’s uncertainty about fawnish sexuality and sexual expression. Now, he let Sherlock nuzzle and kiss his collarbones as the fawn mused over his answer, wondering which of the aforementioned would be his preference.

“John is inside,” Sherlock mumbled suddenly, lips occupied with tracing the rim of his scar. “You’re… inside.”

“Yes, that’s right.” John swallowed back a knot of emotion. He didn’t deserve such unconditional forgiveness, but he was incredibly grateful for it nonetheless. He knotted his fingers in Sherlock’s hair and tugged gently, pulling him up to look at his face. “Do you want me inside of you, Sherlock? Physically?”

Sherlock’s nostrils flared with interest, and his head tipped to the side in that familiar quirk. “How?”

John licked his lips. This was potentially the awkward part. He slid a hand between them, feeling for his hard prick and stroking the tip along the slim line of Sherlock’s outer thigh. “I put this… in you. Beneath your tail.” Sherlock surely knew what an “anus” was, with his delight in John’s myriad of medical texts, but the word felt too distant and clinical for this.

Sherlock didn’t even look startled at the prospect – in fact, he looked rather sly, and John wondered if the fawn really  _did_  know what was involved. “It will fit?” he inquired simply.

John nodded. “I’ll be gentle. Slow. But only if you want, you understand? We can do other things.” He smiled encouragingly.

Sherlock ducked his head, ears twitching. He looked almost… embarrassed, as he brought his lips to John’s ear and mumbled, “Want you inside. Want you everywhere.”

Lust (affection, desire, passion) surged inside of him. He squeezed his heavy prick, just once, and released it to smooth his palm over Sherlock’s flank. “All right. Let me get the lubricant.” It was a quick reach over the bedside stand; when he returned, after a moment of fumbling, his fingers were slippery and gleaming. He kissed Sherlock’s throat, dimmed to dusky brown in the dark room. “Roll over for me, love. Onto your stomach.”

The fawn obeyed silently, watching over his shoulder with silvery eyes as John made himself comfortable between his spread legs. With his slick fingers curled protectively toward his palm, he spread the other hand over the soft skin of Sherlock’s lumbar spine. The mound of his arse rose to meet his touch, plush and extravagant in a way that none of the rest of him was: in a body of lines and angles made for speed, for practicality, this part of him was a luxury. John’s mouth watered, dropping open slightly, and somehow it was no hardship to lay open lips against the curve of that smooth, downy flesh.

Sherlock made a startled sound, but he didn’t move away, and John’s fingers tightened as he kissed his way inward. Sherlock’s tail brushed his cheek, flicked in response. John giggled in spite of himself and stroked the fingers of his clean hand through the short, bristly fur. “Sherlock,” he murmured, suddenly hating the dark room, “Turn on the light.”

The fawn made a disappointed sound, but he reached over, dragging himself a little away from John’s nearness, and switched on the bedside lamp. Then he gathered the pillows beneath him and melted into them, wiggled his arse in front of John’s face. An obvious invitation. John grinned.

“Yeah, all right, I can take a hint.”

He stroked Sherlock’s tail, more firmly this time, rubbing the long plume of white strands between his fingers, lifting. Beneath, the downy cleft of his arse, and when John spread him open a little bit, he could see the tight bud of his entrance, firmly shut against intrusion. John lowered his head and pressed his nose and mouth to one plush cheek, inhaling the musk of Sherlock’s arousal. He groaned. If he smelt this amazing, what would he  _taste_  like?

“John.” Sherlock’s voice was ragged and strained, half-muffled by the pillows. When John looked up, all he could see was the taut line of his back and, arching up over his hunched shoulders, the velvety prongs of his antlers. “You…”

John eased his grip, rubbed his thumb along the warm, damp seam. “Everything okay?”

“Fine. Just…” a shuddering inhale, “Hurry.”

John swallowed a groan and gripped his tail in earnest, bending to kiss tentatively just beneath where the cleft of Sherlock’s arse began. The skin was hot and damp from the shower, tasting faintly of mint and of musk: a heady combination of cedar, humid earth, and something thicker and more cloying that made John’s mouth water. He firmed his tongue and pressed, slipping down over the furled skin that was his eventual goal. He paused here, licking repeatedly, keeping his touch light but persistent. With his lubricant-slick knuckles he rubbed at Sherlock’s perineum, dual teasing pressures that didn’t quite coalesce into what he needed. The fawn whined farther up the bed and shifted, pressing inadvertently against John’s face.

“That’s it,” he murmured, nonsensical encouragement. He pointed his tongue, eased closer, and at last the tight muscle gave under his careful ministrations. He sighed contentedly and sealed his lips over the spot, and he licked and sucked with abandon as his salvia got everything wet and sloppy. All the while, Sherlock whimpered and gasped into his pillows, sometimes sounding as if he were in pain; but he never pushed John away, only grew hotter and sweatier under his hands, desperation tightening every muscle in his body until he was trembling to keep from rutting against John’s face.

Finally weary of the fawn’s (surprising) restraint, John dug his right hand firmly into the hard bone of his hip and tugged, coaxing him into a gentle rocking. The fawn picked it up almost immediately, giving a soft cry as he rubbed his erection against the sheets and his arse against John’s mouth. John moaned encouragingly and finally, finally, brought his slippery left hand up and pressed one finger in alongside his tongue.

Sherlock’s reaction was electric. His back arched, his fingers claws at the sheets, and his billowing gasp seemed to suck all the air from the room. John sank his teeth gently into the soft swell of the fawn’s thigh and eased two fingers in, smoothing in and out with a racing heart and the heat of his own erection sizzling between his belly and the rumpled bedding. Sherlock whined high in his throat and pushed back.

“More,” he demanded, the force of his insistence somewhat diluted by the trembling pitch of his voice. “John, please.  _Please_.”

He’d barely spoken at all the entire time, but now he couldn’t seem to stop. Words and noises spilled from him in an endless stream as John dragged his fingers in and out, gentle but firm, until the fawn was loose enough for three. Sherlock seemed increasingly restless, more than was to be expected, so John coaxed him up onto hands and knees with a touch on his hip. This way he could rock back onto John's hand, which he did, quite energetically. John knelt behind, meeting him push for shove until his wrist was cramping and his prick had leaked a slick patch on Sherlock’s thigh.

“Sherlock,” he murmured, pretending he wasn’t as close to the edge as Sherlock was. “How do you feel?”

The fawn peeked around the trembling curve of his bicep, showing flushed cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes that seemed to be made of inky black. The tip of a pink tongue peeked out from between his lips. “Feel good,” Sherlock croaked. “Feel ready.”

“Good.” John took a deep breath. “One more thing, and then we’ll… move on.” He had three fingers inside Sherlock’s body, now, and the muscle of his anus was relaxed and slick. But he’d been avoiding the prostate, afraid that too much stimulation would push Sherlock right over the edge – and John wanted this to be as mutual as possible. Simultaneous orgasm was a paperback novelette fantasy, he was well aware, but there was no harm in dragging it out a bit more.

With all the precision of a doctor and none of the detachment, he stretched, stroked the pads of his fingers against the sleek inner walls. The fawn went abruptly still. His whole body shuddered, and for a moment John feared he’d brought him to the edge after all. But a quick peek between Sherlock’s legs revealed no semen on the sheets or spurting from the plump, rosy head of his cock. Relieved, and trembling a bit in his own right, John slid free and fisted his cock perfunctorily.

“Sherlock.” His voice rattled slightly, dry from breathing through his mouth, and he licked his lips. “Are you ready?”

“Said so,” Sherlock mumbled, somehow managing to sound irritated even in the midst of arousal. But he leaned into John’s touch, stroking along the curve of his back, and John ducked to press a smiling kiss to his spine.

“I know you did. Do you want to… roll over?”

Sherlock fell to the side obediently, exposing a flushed and sweaty front, his prick straining against the trail of fuzz on his belly. He wriggled closer, and John didn’t even care that the tops of his antlers had scraped the headboard. “Why?”

“This,” John said, and pressed his thighs apart and up. “I’d… I’d like to see you, if that’s okay. Your face, I mean.” He blushed at his own stammering, but Sherlock wasn’t confused – he spoke like that himself, much of the time. Instead he reached out, wordless, and pulled John down against his body.

“See,” he whispered, running his fingertips over John’s lips. “I see you, John.” His thighs tipped back even more without direction, calves lifting to drape themselves loosely over John’s waist, drawing him in.

He dropped his head to the sharp, gleaming line of Sherlock’s clavicle and breathed. “Tell me,” he whispered, as he gripped his own girth and pressed it against the entrance to Sherlock’s body. “Tell me if it hurts.”

His body was so tight, in spite of his care and patience, but Sherlock didn’t seem to mind. His eyes held John’s, wide and trembling, their lashes framed with damp as they breathed together. When John paused, Sherlock urged him on, until at last they lay completely joined, the thick heat of Sherlock’s prick pressed between their bodies.

“God,” John sighed, a stutter of breath on Sherlock’s neck.

Sherlock hummed and nosed along his sweat-pricked hairline. “Good. It’s good, John.” His little tongue darted out and licked delicately at his temple, a wet, warm touch that was shocking in its innocence. John’s hips twitched of their own accord and when he started, he found he couldn’t stop.

The rhythm was instinctive, barely a rhythm at all – just short, quick bursts, like the sharp breaths that come with panic or sometimes pleasure. Sherlock bucked beneath him, his wayward limbs slipping and sliding on the sheets, on John’s slick skin. Heat overwhelmed them; John’s humid breath swirled in the curve of Sherlock’s neck like its own miniature climate, a taste of the Caribbean in a prism of flesh.

It didn’t take long, even when John’s long strokes melted into short, grinding circles that tipped Sherlock’s hips back and made those silver eyes slide back into his head. John braced himself with a hand to the headboard, fighting for each languid roll. The other pushed up through the sweat gleaming on Sherlock’s belly, the heaving ribcage, along the corded neck and into his hair to grip the base of one antler. The fawn shouted, garbled sounds in the strange language of his own kind, and his eyes flew open as his spine contracted, pulling his orgasm from him in a steady grip that seemed to last forever. John held on, every muscle taut; and when the crest of the wave had passed, leaving Sherlock trembling in the aftershocks, he let himself be dragged along in the remunerating undertow.

* * *

When John woke the next morning, he found his only blanket was the sunlight streaming through the window. Sherlock, as per usual, had stolen the rest, all bundled in the warm cocoon of bedding. John kissed the top of his head lightly - the only part of him that was visible - and slipped out of bed to make breakfast.

Snug and secure in his bathrobe, the kitchen tiles cool against his bare feet, John fried up bacon and eggs over the gas stove, keeping a close eye on the toaster. It was a massive eight-slice capacity thing, chrome red and horrible; but it was a gift from Harry, and it worked all right. And Sherlock loved toast, ate it with everything, so it was getting its fair share of use.

With the bacon and eggs safely on plates, John began the lengthy buttering process. He was only halfway through when there was a slight draft – his only warning – and Sherlock’s long, warm arms were wrapping around his waist from behind. John hummed in acknowledgement and leaned back into the fawn’s embrace.

“Smelled the buttered toast, did you?”

“Mmmm.” A cold nose rubbed beneath his ear and John grunted a half-hearted protest.

“Tickles.” Deftly, he finished the eighth slice and dumped it on top of the rest, a haphazard stack fighting for room with the fried eggs and crispy bacon rashers. “Breakfast in bed?”

“Yes!” Sherlock exclaimed, peeling away to gallop back down the hall.

“Oi! Not so fast, mister. Come back and pour the coffee.” The fawn slunk back in, ears low in a pout. John shook his head fondly and stepped close, brushing a kiss to his shoulder. “Are you really going to pull the gloomy card after last night?” he inquired, voice thick with humor and affection.

Sherlock sighed, shook his head. Silver eyes crinkled, and the fawn darted in to rub his nose briefly against John’s. John stepped back and made for the bedroom, listening to the distinctive sounds of Sherlock navigating the mysteries of the coffee pot.

When they were sat up side by side in bed, covers pulled cozily around their waists and hips wedged comfortably together, John cleared his throat and said, “I saw Mycroft last night.”

Sherlock stiffened right away. “Why?”

“I was out looking for you. It was late, and I was lost, and I’d given up. Then he was just… there. The way he does.”

“Idiot,” Sherlock snarled into his toast. “Not you,” he amended. “Never you.”

“Definitely me, sometimes,” John laughed. “But this time I didn’t mind so much – Mycroft, that is. He helped me find you. But he did say something that… well, it made me nervous.”

“You think I don’t forgive you?” Sherlock asked, skipping right over John’s hedging and into the truth of the matter.

“Of course I do,” John soothed. “I believe you, Sherlock. But he said…  _what is it going to take to get him to feel safe with you again?_  And I just wondered, do you feel safe? With me?”

Sherlock crunched down his toast as he considered the question. “John is mate.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“John is home.” The fawn scowled – at himself, not at John. “You are my home. Your… home is my home. Yes?”

John nodded. “Of course. Absolutely one hundred percent, even when I get mad and forget.” He took a breath. “I do love you, Sherlock. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Sherlock blinked, unimpressed. “I just said so.” The  _idiot_  went unsaid, but it was clear in his face. John stifled a smile.

“You’re right, you did. I guess what I’m trying to say is – you never have to be afraid of me, okay? Even when I get upset. Which doesn’t…  _shouldn’t_  happen often, or ever. Even when I’m upset, I won’t ever hurt you. Do you believe me?”

Sherlock reached out a hand to brush crumbs from John’s mouth. “I trust you,” he said simply. “Last night, John is gentle. I hear, read – lovemaking hurts, sometimes. But never with you. You are good, John.” A soft pat to the side of his face. “Good.”

John smiled faintly, a little alarmed at the prickling in his eyelids. “I’m glad.” He turned his head and kissed the warm fingers still lingering near his cheek. “Now eat this egg, please, before it goes cold.”

Sherlock obviously knew a deflection when he saw one, but he didn’t comment. “Then more sex after?” he inquired, hand inching toward the plate.

“Of course,” John laughed, and pushed a fork at him.


End file.
